Problem with Maschine V.2.1.2 and external Midi Synths

Hi, I hope for some advice or attention from the NI-folks and ... sorry for the long post.

In short, I have to set up a live-rig with some hardware synths and a pattern oriented sequencer. The purpose of the rig is to support live midi-recording and looping. In the early days, I think, one would have hooked up this - all hardware - with an MPC or something equivalent.

Since I like the Maschine workflow - and if I am working completely "in the box", there is absolutely no complaint - I hooked up everything and crashed after some minutes. After some more testing I am sure that the culprit is the Maschine software.

My set-up consists of:
Maschine MK I, Maschine Software 2.1.2, PC with i7 processor, Win 7 64bit, traditional 5 pin Midi connections in the rig, and some hardware synths.

Maschine/synth configuration:
- use of Maschine MK I controller midi port "on", all others "off" (in and out)
- each sound with dedicated midi-in and midi-out from Maschine Controller
- each sound with dedicated midi-channel-in and midi-channel-out to the corresponding "midi-channel" of the synth (1-16)
- keyboard to be played on is set to "midi local off"

Activation of a synth by hitting the corresponding pad of the sound, receiving and sending midi-notes on it's channel should work out of the box, I thought, but some weird things happend instead.

Problem(s): everything seems to work for a short time (some minutes), but then ...
1) some notes get lost,
2) sending midi in on channel 2 (example only) creates output on channel 1 (for inputs on channels 2 and above) too ???
3) during recording/play back midi notes get stuck
4) even an unexpected program change on a synth was issued - the change was allways to the same program, weird ???
5) finally total silence ...

I shut down Maschine and no other midi-software could access the external synths via midi. Well, the midi-hardware was still on-line, which was easy to check. After rebooting the PC and relaunching Maschine everything worked again - first fine - then weird errors started again. I just was not able to use it continously for a decent time.

As an alternative approach and for reasons of testing and comparing, I downloaded Ableton-Live Demo and gave it a try with the same midi set-up. For at least one hour the system worked stable under various testing conditions out of the box. This is the reason, why I think that there is a critical issue with Maschine and external midi gear (maybe only on PC?).

For many reasons I would prefer to stay with Maschine. Now my questions:

Q1: What may I have done wrong - what can I do better to get Maschine to work?
Q2: If there is an PC/software related issue, will NI take care of it and fix it?
Q3: Any alternatives for a decent hardware-preferred solution?

Thanks for staying with me until now and for any advice, hint, and comment you may drop here.

 

Hi Sound Raider,
I have been having a similar problem since the start of September, I am trying to get Maschine Mk2 (latest software up date) to sequence a Vermona DRM 1 Mk3. I opted for the Vermona as it is a powerful drum maschine. Although it has no sequencer, I thought I could use the maschine as the sequencer. I did a bit of research (as I am new to Midi) and it looked like the maschine could handle it with no problems, which are all that I have had.
I bought the Vermona for my 40th birthday and have not been able to use it for more than 2-3 minutes before the midi signal drops out, I have tried to sequence a Novation A-Station and a DSI Mopho, all with the same result - Midi signal drops out after 2-3 minutes. I do have to admit, I have only had a few hours to spare in the past few months to look at the problem as I work for myself and have been flat out. The best idea would be to send an email to support (which I will be doing this afternoon when I get home). As for what will NI do about this? - hopefully something but the more people that tell them they have this issue the quicker they will look at it.
But I just purchased a E-MU MP7 Command Station - synth/sequencer from ebay. It is capable of sequencing up to 32 voice at once from either an internal or external source. Cant tell you much more I'm still waiting on it to arrive from the US (im in OZ).

Good luck and keep posting to this thread with any solution (I will do the same)

Kaneda828

 

Hi Kaneda828,

since you are intersted in solutions, here is my experience of the last two days...

I have checked out Ableton-Live just for comparison to understand, who was the culprit of my problems, Maschine or Windows. As it came out, it was Maschine. There is at least one thread here in this forum, discussing similar problems since software version 1.X. It's a shame that NI did not address the issue in version 2.x until now.

Yesterday my little research popped out the information that the Maschine Controller supports Ableton-Live 8 and 9. I checked it out, because Ableton seems to do the midi-to-external-device-job pretty reliable.

Setup is easy. After copy/paste of the Maschine scripts (provided with the included Controller Editor) to my Ableton-Demo and the upload of the corresponding driver to the controller (by the Controller Editor) the Maschine Controller now allows the following operations (only a selection here...):

1) Select a track, a pad, a clip, a scene
2) arm, fire, stop, record into a clip
3) use the pads to play chromatic notes
... and more ...

What I like is that Ableton provides for:
- preparing a track to receive all midi-in data, but sends out on a selected midi-channel only (many in and converted to one out)
- if a track is "armed", it takes the midi-in and sends it out after conversion to the specified midi-track and is ready for live-recording
- if a track is "not armed", it only plays back it's content to the specified midi-out.
... and more ...

If you dig into Maschine, you would find that it's supposed to do the same, but fails - how sad.

I would recommend to check out the Ableton-Live Demo, if you are not bound to go for a hardware only solution.
BTW: Ableton has a "End-Of-The-Year" price reduction until 15th of January since yesterday

 

Ableton is the way to go for midi sequencing, maschine is pretty horrible with midi.

Thank you for pointing out the Ableton sale

 

At least one thing is very clear now. NI does not care about adequate midi support to external devices.

Proof is Maschine software release 2.2. Got it, hoped, tried it, and again, it failed. It's so sad, really

I hate do doulbe features in the studio, but now I am close to order Push. I like the Maschine controller and the Komplete integration better than Push, but I want to control external synths too and not beeing forced to work "in the box" only. What I want is the combination of computer and hardware synths without compromise.

NI, it's the first time that I am really disappointed, because implementation of decent Midi support ... how long is it around? 1982 ? ... is still standard and no esoteric stuff for some freaks.

 

The dropped midi output is a known issue that happens only on Windows. It only happens if more than one midi out port is enabled in audio midi settings. For Windows you can only enable one midi out port in Maschine stand alone. If you need to sequence more than one hardware device, you can work around it if one or more of your devices has a midi thru port. Use this to chain the devices together. Just make sure each device is set to respond on separate midi channels.

 

Thanks for your response.

I know this already and have done exactly as you suggest. Only one midi port enabled. The pitty is, it doesn't help to get Maschine to be useful for real work. Not only drop-outs keep me irritated, it also sends out program changes by making use of some software-pixie, and it causes midi chaos by swallowing up the one or other midi-note-off message.

Since Ableton Live does not have this issue on Windows - I can say this, after having tested both software packages for a while now - it has to be faulty NI-Software, at least the midi implementation sucks. There was some hope with the new release for a change.